Gun Violence
- View the Philadelphia Inquirer's interactive map showing occurrences of gun homicides and gun violence in the city
- Pennsylvania ranks #6 in the nation for handgun homicides involving children.
CeasefirePA - The PA city with the highest per capita homicide rate caused by gun violence in the state is Harrisburg.
CeasefirePA - In PA, gun violence is responsible for the deaths of 1,200 people each year.
CeasefirePA - PA has the highest rate in the nation of black homicide victims - 29.52 murders per 100,000 population - which equates to more then six times the overall US rate for victims of all races. 81% of those homicides were committed with handguns.
CeasefirePA and Report from the Violence Policy Center - In 2006, 65.6% of homicide victims throughout the state were killed with handguns.
CeasefirePA - There were approximately 2,500 non-fatal crimes involving handguns in PA last year.
CeasefirePA - 40% of guns recovered in Camden, NJ, which were used in crimes were originally purchased in PA.
CeasefirePA - 179 people aged 7-24 were killed in Philadelphia last year. Of those, 94% were killed with firearms.
Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Safe and Sound Project - PA is the #1 source state for recovered crime guns in Camden and Trenton, NJ.
CeasefirePA - PA is a bigger source for crime guns recovered in New York City than the State of New York.
CeasefirePA - In 2005, the rate of gun violence rose twice as fast in the rest of the state of PA, than it did in Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties.
- PA spends over $125 million dollars per year on the immediate health care needs of shooting victims, including about $90 million paid by taxpayers to care for uninsured victims.
CeasefirePA Firearm injuries are the second leading cause of injury-related deaths nationwide, surpassed only by motor vehicle injuries.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Reports, Deaths: Final Data for 2001, Vol. 52, No. 3, p. 91, September 18, 2003.- Philadelphia currently has the highest number of gun homicides of any city in the US.
CeasefirePA - Philadelphia police confiscated 5,386 handguns from prohibited persons or from city streets in 2006.
CeasefirePA - Over 80% of killings in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are committed with handguns,
most often by people with criminal records who are unable lawfully to purchase handguns
from a licensed dealer—they instead buy them illegally.
CeasefirePA
Polls consistently confirm that most Americans want stronger gun laws
- 65% of all PA voters support stricter gun laws.
CeasefirePA; Poll Conducted by Greenberg Quinlan, September 13-18, 2006 for Philadelphia Safe & Sound, sample size 1009 people, margin of error 4% - 71 percent of PA voters—and 61 percent of gun owners—support a statewide limit on handgun purchases to one handgun per month.
- 81 percent of PA voters support legislation requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen guns.
- 87.9 percent of Americans support "child-proofing" firearms, 72.2 percent back technology that "personalizes" handguns, and 74.9 percent favor governmental safety standards for firearms. (Susan B. Sorenson, "Regulating Firearms as a Consumer Product", Science, Nov. 19, 1999, at 1481-82.)
- 65 percent of Americans favor strengthening the federal assault weapon ban, including 51 percent of gun owners. (Consumer Federation of America, "Consumers Strongly Support Renewing and Strengthening the Federal Assault Weapons Ban", Feb. 2004)
- 67 percent of Field & Stream readers do not consider assault weapons to be legitimate sporting guns. (Field & Stream, "The 2003 National Hunting Survey", July 2003, citing an informal survey of 2,897 readers).
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